Standing Up To The Nazis - Melody Maker, 28th May 1994

This weekend, The Levellers, The Manics, Credit To The Nation and Billy Bragg appear at Brockwell Park's Anti-Nazi rally and festival at London Brockwell Park. Here, they talk to Ian Watson about the importance of taking a stand.

"The idea that rock bands can change anything has been defunct for about two decodes now, but just for us personally, it's important to show where we stand. Were quite an apolitical band, in the sense that we've never been impressed by stuff like Red Wedge. But something like this is an issue which is much broader than politics."

"The Holocaust was the worst ever event in world history. And what I'm more interested in, is that there's a lot of revisionist historical books being written at the moment, saying that the Holocaust was a lie and Jewish Christian conspiracy. And if that's happening in academia. I think its important for us to go onstage and say, 'This is what we stand against.. "

"Even a film like 'Schindler's List' worries me. It's very dangerous. It gives Schindler some level of humanity, and with an issue as horrific as the Holocaust, you have to be very block and white °booth. You can't allow grey areas. There's gonna be kids who'll grow up thinking rhos Schindler won okay and just a bit confused. Maybe he was. But that event was no bad, you hove to lodge anyone who had anything to do with iron those terms."

"So that's why we're not embarrassed to play, even though we haven't done something like this before. When we started off, we would never have imagined us doing something like this. Because the whole Red Wedge thing had a big impression on us when we were young. We thought it was the biggest bullshit thing ever. It was just like going to school with old men saying, 'Do this, do that', and you are not allowed to make your own judgement!"

"We just wanted to do this gig on a basic emotional level. Certain bands need to be political, but we're not like that We don't want to shove our opinions down peoples throats. We're not The Levellers, and we're not going to a benefit concert twice week for the rest of our lives If s going to be quite rare. But this is the first time we've agreed to do something like this, and that's enough of o statement in itself."